"According to our Adjusted Standings page, through Sunday the Angels were 11.5 games above their third-order Pythagenpat projection, a fancy way of saying that they've won over 11 games more than the combination of events on the field—their hits, walks, total bases, stolen bases, and outs of all kinds, as well as those of their opponents, all adjusted for park, league, quality of competition and temperature of porridge—would suggest. That's by far the top mark in the majors this year, and while it's not enough to break the single-season record of 16.0, set by last year's Anaheim team, it does crack the all-time top 10, and place them in select company."

This will make for a nice off-season project. I earlier looked at teams that have outperformed their run differential and found no evidence that some teams "repeat" as over- or under-achievers. I think it's fair to conclude that the Angels may be history's first exception to the rule, which of course requires we rethink some things. Says BP: "Quite simply, we're in Almost Neverland."

The truly weird thing is that this Angels team has almost none of the characteristics of last year's team -- they're basically a slugging homer-hitting team with a sketchy bullpen, not last year's bullpen-and-small-ball crew. So it might be hard to find that characteristic that should predict overachievement. The simplest explanations may be that the Angels have been extraordinary in "clutch" situations; or that the Angels are extraordinarily bad in blowout situations. Not sure if either of those facts is actually true, but a place to look.

We talked about this season's surprises (i.e. stuff I got wrong) and about the nature of statistical projections.

me: I want to take about some of the mistakes I made in anticipating this season. Since I lean heavily on your projections, I figure I can just blame you.

Sean Smith: I didn't anticipate the injuries - I'm pretty sure I had Ervin set for a big year.

me: Before I go to some players outperforming or underperforming projections, though, this is quoting you... you were asked which Angel could collapse, which would break out: "If I have to pick one maybe Howie Kendrick. I'm worried about the injuries and inability to lay off the slider outside stalling his development. With his lack of patience, he has to hit .300 to be an asset, .270 would be a disaster. ... Weaver will take the step forward to become an ace, like Lackey, Santana, and Saunders have before him. My projections see him as the equal to Lackey and Santana."

Funny, and pretty accurate, too! BABIP is a terrible stat for measuring the quality of players, because a) it often reflects style of play rather than quality of play, and b) it tends to regress toward a fairly small range around the league average. But it is a great stat for measuring the probability of luck, because it fluctuates a lot and spikes in BABIP (for hitters or for pitchers) are often short-lived and not predictive. In other words, you would never say Player A Russell Branyan is better than Player B Albert Pujols because he has a higher BABIP; but you might convincingly argue that Player A's career season is a fluke because his BABIP is wildly out of line with his career norms.

• If you stuff the All-Star ballots for just one National Leaguer this year, make it Lastings Milledge. I'm not sure what the larger point is, but I filed my 25 votes for the Washington minor leaguer. (And no other outfielders; wouldn't want to dilute those votes.)

• An Athletics Nation diarist uses charts and graphs to make a provocative accusation: The success of Billy Beane's Moneyball-era teams was really about identifying and capitalizing on steroid-users. Provocative, but ultimately unconvincing to me. Those early '00s offenses were basically big-time young stars (Giambi, Tejada and Chavez), bolstered by clever, inexpensive supporting pieces (Kotsay, Stairs, Jaha, Hatteberg, etc.). The later teams are basically big-time young busts (Buck, Barton, Crosby) bolstered by clever, inexpensive supporting pieces. Is the difference between Giambi/Tejada/Chavez really 150 runs and 15 wins more than Buck/Barton/Crosby? Yes, yes it it. The difference isn't that Giambi and Tejada were juicers; it's that they were actually good.

• I read somewhere a few months back that the Yankees have no intention of re-signing Chien-Ming Wang long term. He's returning from his injury soon, and I think he'd be a great buy-low pickup for the Angels. Shoot, simply replacing Derek Jeter with Erick Aybar behind him probably saves him five or 10 runs. Phil Hughes' meltdown yesterday might foul this idea up.

• And, since the video of Torii Hunter's catch was quickly removed from YouTube, enjoy this similarly spectacular and dramatic catch:

Perhaps the hardest part of the game to analyze statistically is relief pitching. Relief pitchers' stats are so volatile over 70 innings, and factors like usage patterns, injuries, platoon matchups and the guys who come in afterward are so inconsistent, that even at the end of the season it's hard to know what sort of pitcher you have. In fact, let's play a game: Can you spot five differences in the following two pictures of reliever Justin Speier?

During the offseason, when I suggested the Angels ought to trade Chone Figgins and install Brandon Wood at third base, somebody brought up a good point: Who would lead off? Figgins is the only one who fits the classic look of a leadoff hitter, getting on base and stealing bags. Secretly, I thought that was the wrong question -- lineup analysis tools are pretty adamant that Bobby Abreu should be the Angels' leadoff hitter, and that Figgins should be hitting eighth or ninth. (The real question is whether Figgins' defense is good enough that he's become undervalued, which I'm coming around on.) But I didn't push the point because, I figured, having the right "type" of lineup is probably something the Angels take seriously, so it's no use spitting into the wind.

Then Vladimir Guerrero went down, and Scioscia's lineups started to look a bit funny, and now I wonder: Does Scioscia care about lineups at all?

If he does, why was Maicer Izturis his No. 3 hitter on Friday? We all know what a No. 3 hitter looks like: He's traditionally the best hitter on the team (or something like the best). He typically has a bit of pop. He's the star. Maicer Izturis is a fun little hitter, but his name obviously stuck out.

OK, maybe it's a late scratch, a hasty fix. So I look the next night and Izturis again. Then on Sunday, Robb Quinlan is the No. 3 hitter. Well, now. Of everybody on the Angels' active roster at the time, Quinlan was the second-worst hitter last year, ahead of only Jeff Mathis. The projection system PECOTA forecasts that he'll be the worst this year, and as many of you know, it's not like PECOTA is rosy on the rest of the Angels. Putting Quinlan in the third spot can only be Scioscia showing a sort of self-aware mockery of the system. Like the guy who did the network dubbing of Snakes on a Plane:

• Rany Jazayerli, fuming over Trey Hillman's insane decision to leave Kyle Farnsworth in to face Jim Thome last night, shows us how to bloggily assault a bad managerial decision:

"(I've) decided that whatever Hillman accomplished in Japan, it means absolutely nothing if he can't perform third-grade math in his head, the kind of math that says the guy with the 2.61 ERA last year is better than the guy with the 4.48 ERA."

On a somewhat related topic, was anybody else screaming at their TV for Scioscia to bring in Darren Oliver, not Kevin Jepsen, to face lefties Giambi, Chavez and Cust in the seventh inning last night? Just me?

• Speaking of Oliver, the lefty is the namesake of a new class of player coined by Jorge Says No. The Darren Oliver Roster comprises players with vast major league experience signed to minor league contracts who earn their way onto a major league roster. Looking at the list of names, it's hard to imagine any of them paying off as well as Oliver has in his time with the Angels.

Part five of our preview of the Angels' roster by combining every respectable projection system into one mega-projection for each player. We previously looked at infielders, outfielders, catchers and starting pitchers. I'll have far less comment for the relievers.

This is a must-read if you drafted Matt Wieters expecting an immediate Hall of Famer for your fantasy squad (like me), or if you just want to see a really smart guy make a really strong case against PECOTA infallibility.